The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-12-02
The Gathered Butter Process,

The Gathered Butter Process,
1t is nice problem to adjust the in.
terests of the managers of the butter
factory and the dairyman who furnish
es the milk so that each party will re.
ceive his due share of the value pro-
duced, says L. S. Hardin in The Prach
cal Farmer. With the great majority
of butter factories the custom is to haul
the whole milk and get 1t for creamlng.
After the skimming is done the skim
milk and buttermlk are put to various
uses-made into cheese or fed to ami
mails, or in some cases carried back to
the farm to be there fed. There are
many drawbacks to this method. The
full milk is heavy TO handle; the team
must 90 slow so that it is not too Sc
verely shaken. But probably the most
serious objection is the mixing the milk
of all the patrons, good, bad and indif.
fereut. One thing is certain; You can
not get forty or fifty patrons to furnish
a uniform high grade of milk, and if
you put one bad lot with forty good
ones the whole will be contaminated.
These faults were in measure avoid
ed by the process of gathering the
cream. The weight was reduced and
any reason able speed with the wagon
could be maintained, and. while the
fault of mixing all the lots together was
not entirely avoided, yet there was not
so much danger from the small amount
furnished by each patron. The great
fault with this system was the difficulty
of finding some method for measuring
the exact value of each lot. We all
know about the failure of the inch
SYSTEM and it has not yet been demon
strated that the small churns can re.
lieve this trouble. Almost the same
fault was found with the full milk sys-
tenn, as it often happened that some OF
the patrons furnished milk much rich
or or poorer than the average This
worked an injustice and created dis.
satisfaction. There is new method
which is said to do away with the
above objections, though it may intro
duce new ones. 1t is called the gather
ed butter process. Each farmer sets
his milk at home in prescribed cans
and at an approximation to given
temperature. The milk or cream is to
be churned always before it reaches a
given age. say five days. The churn is
to be stopped when the butter reaches
the granular form and washed clean
with brine. This is all the sailing
that is allowed on the farm. The
butter is to be kept cool until the
gathering wagon calls for it When
it reaches the factory the maker
grades" it. That is, he puts in sep
arate lots those samples of butter that
most closely resemble one another in
quality. When so close system is
followed on the farm by all the patrons
there can be but little variation in the
quality Thus tho maker has only to
grade two or three kinds and work
them up together and salt them to the
required amount, putting more in the
poorer qualities SO as to hide the
defects.
The great objection to this system is
the labor of skimming and churning on
the farm, but the truth is that in butter
making the real heart breaking part is
the working and sailing and making
the best possible sale. All this is put
where 1t can be done the best, while
the refuse of skim milk and butter
milk is left on the farm, where it will
do the most good. With this "unsalted
butter" system the man who runs the
creamery pays for nothing in the dark.
The patron delivers an article that can
be graded and paid for just as 1t is.
and if the patron insists upon having
slovenly habits, he, at least cannot
impose the effect Of those habit upon
others. There Is not the danger of
injuring the milk or cream in hauling
il, and the wagon does not make so
many trips. We do not know to what
extent this new method has been intro
duced and what its practical workings
are. but we like the looks OF 1t and
understand II has been introduced in
Iowa, where 1t gets full and salts.
factory trial. and where it is now said
in some districts to be supersedng the
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